Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Unofficial support for the KXStudio Linux distribution and applications.
More info at http://kxstudio.linuxaudio.org/

Moderators: MattKingUSA, khz

merlyn
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by merlyn »

ufug wrote:I had a drive failure last week
Do you want to get the data back? I've had good results with ddrescue:

https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/m ... anual.html
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ufug
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by ufug »

merlyn wrote:
ufug wrote:I had a drive failure last week
Do you want to get the data back? I've had good results with ddrescue:

https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/m ... anual.html
Thanks merlyn! I got 100% recovery. I run Back in Time nightly so restoring was easy (I'm a little excessive with backing up at home and also do an offsite backup every couple of weeks, learned the hard way). It was a great relief as I've got a bunch of in progress music.

rdhvdberg, that would be truly amazing if it manifests. To be honest, I am wary about the future of the KX repos. KX is what really made making music doable on Linux for semi-savvy people like me, and I don't want to go back to the dark ages. Meanwhile Ubuntu Studio seems like it's on an upward trajectory and appears to be well-stewarded.
listenable at c6a7.org
millerthegorilla
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by millerthegorilla »

Yesterday, I installed xubuntu and added the kxstudio repositories to that on a friend's laptop. Everything installed and it worked fine.

The laptop that I'm on now, is running kxstudio, the v2 iso that falktx released for testing some time ago. I installed it, and once I'd pinned firefox to the standard ubuntu release, pkcon updated everything with no errors.

It all works fine and looks good, a running 18.04, kde neon, kxstudio. I'm very pleased.

My friend is noob to linux so I first tried avl linux but I found that it was rather tediously prescriptive, and there didn't seem to be a firewall installed. So, I know xubuntu well and installed that, signing the nvidia driver for optimus, which was hassle.
Just add linux-lowlatency kernel, edit the /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf file, add the user to audio group, set vm.swappiness down to 1 (no swapdrive), install cpufreqd, add noatime to fstab mount, and install the kxstudio meta packages, as well as add the menu, and adjust the theme.
It looks good and works well.
I used to be a user of ubuntu studio, to which I added the kxstudio packages, but the recent release with ubuntu-studio-controls is tediously anti free as in speech. It incorporates jackdbus, which I couldn't seem to download from repositories as a separate pkg, and so you use ubuntustudio, with jack, only if you use ubuntu studio controls. Being forced to use some set up or other is so against the linux core philosophy, that I won't go back to the project until they have kicked the twerp that has created this proprietary situation, and released ubu studio as it should be, with ultimate configurability and no dictation as to what we should and shouldn't install.

In the meantime, I can recommend xubuntu with kxstudio repositories. When you first try and add a package, apt might complain that you have held broken packages, but this can be overcome by running $sudo apt-get -f install.
I don't know how long the repositories will be valid for, if there is no development going on, but its good for now.

I am also working on, when I get time, a fedora install, with kxstudio packages, particularly plugins, installed. I have written a piece of software using pyqt for the gui, with python backend, to download deb packages from launchpad, and then convert them using alien and install them, keeping track of the installed files. Its at https://github.com/millerthegorilla/launchpad_rpm.
Hopefully I will be able to get kxstudio packages like cadence, which I am a great fan of, as well as the tools and plugins to install and work on fedora. It seems to work so far, but I haven't tested it massively, yet.

best of luck
oddy.o.lynx
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by oddy.o.lynx »

KXStudio can only be added to any Debian flavour up to and including:

Debian 9.9 Stretch
Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial
Mint 18.3 Sylvia

anything higher is a no go

if you are using Ubuntu Studio if not mistaken KX repos cannot be added to a version higher than 16.04 otherwise there will be audio setting conflicts

if using the latest Ubuntu Studio it's best to use Ubuntu Studio Controls and not Cadence or Qjackctl to start JACK and manage your audio cards
m.lp.ql.m
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by m.lp.ql.m »

oddy.o.lynx wrote: Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial
Is this official? KXStudio has been running fine on my Kubuntu 18.04 since April of 2018.
millerthegorilla
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by millerthegorilla »

I installed kxstudio repos for an 18.04 distro a few days ago without error. You have to install the gcc repos, despite the fact that the version of gcc released with ubuntu is in excess of 5.0.

Finally, I would like for people to avoid ubuntu studio, since the ethos of writing a program that deliberately stops other's programs from working, is both crappy and not linux-like. If you try and install jackdbus you will find, I think, on ubuntustudio, that it won't install, as ubuntustudio controls includes the library within its code, not exposing it to others.

Its downright chicanery, and should be discouraged.
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khz
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by khz »

I have updated several machines from Debian-9 (stretch) to Debian-10 (buster) - as I described it in my "GNU/Linux Debian ... LAW" topic.

/etc/apt/sources.list

Code: Select all

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ buster contrib main non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates non-free main contrib
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ buster-updates non-free main contrib
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports main contrib non-free
KXStudio repository has no problems with dist-uprade and the systems can be updated as usual (automatically).
2.2.4. Unattended-upgrades for stable point releases

Previous versions of unattended-upgrades defaulted to installing only upgrades that came from the security suite. In buster it now also automates upgrading to the latest stable point release. For details, see the package's NEWS.Debian file.
Source: https://www.debian.org/releases/testing ... d-upgrades
The su command in buster is provided by the util-linux source package, instead of the shadow source package, and no longer alters the PATH variable by default. This means that after doing su, your PATH may not contain directories like /sbin, and many system administration commands will fail. There are several workarounds:
  • Use su - instead; this launches a login shell, which forces PATH to be changed, but also changes everything else including the working directory.
  • Use sudo instead. sudo still runs commands with an altered PATH variable.
    • To get a regular root shell with the correct PATH, you may use sudo -s.
    • To get a login shell as root (equivalent to su -), you may use sudo -i.
  • Put ALWAYS_SET_PATH yes in /etc/login.defs to get an approximation of the old behavior.
  • Put the system administration directories (/sbin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/sbin) in your regular account's PATH (see EnvironmentVariables for help with this).
Source: https://wiki.debian.org/NewInBuster

(Release Notes for Debian 10 (buster), 64-bit PC https://www.debian.org/releases/testing ... ex.en.html)
. . . FZ - Does humor belongs in Music?
. . GNU/LINUX@AUDIO ~ /Wiki $ Howto.Info && GNU/Linux Debian installing >> Linux Audio Workstation LAW
  • I don't care about the freedom of speech because I have nothing to say.
millerthegorilla
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by millerthegorilla »

I'm going to add that on the updated version of the beta kxstudio neon install, I have installed wayland and it is running fine. Looks good and works well.
merlyn
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by merlyn »

millerthegorilla wrote:Finally, I would like for people to avoid ubuntu studio
I disagree. If you don't want to use it -- don't, but why give Ubuntu Studio a bad name?

It's not aimed at a user who can edit text files to configure the system. It's supposed to work as is.

There needs to be introductory distros for people who are new to Linux, where they can expect to hear a sound fairly soon after installation, not three weeks later, after a lengthy and painful configuration.

So if people turn up here saying "I'm new to Linux and I want to use it for audio production," I would recommend Ubuntu Studio or AVLinux, and I think that should be encouraged.
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by oddy.o.lynx »

I could be wrong and apologize for the misinformation if I am. The KXstudio website does say

"Debian 9 (Stretch) or Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial) you'll also need to enable GCC5 packages"

but I do believe KX repos will install and work well up to 18.04 Bionic Beaver, but I have never attempted it so can't confirm.

My experience is that I had everything working smoothly on Mint 18.3 and when Linux Mint 19 came out I installed it and tried them together and it was a mess. This compelled me to re-install everything this time with Debian Stretch KDE which has proven to be rock solid.
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Linuxmusician01
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

oddy.o.lynx wrote:I could be wrong and apologize for the misinformation if I am. The KXstudio website does say

"Debian 9 (Stretch) or Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial) you'll also need to enable GCC5 packages"

but I do believe KX repos will install and work well up to 18.04 Bionic Beaver, but I have never attempted it so can't confirm.

My experience is that I had everything working smoothly on Mint 18.3 and when Linux Mint 19 came out I installed it and tried them together and it was a mess. This compelled me to re-install everything this time with Debian Stretch KDE which has proven to be rock solid.
Mint 19 marks the switch from being based on Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial to 18.04 Bionic (Bionic is from the year 2018 so I think that one should be well supported). Mint 19 "Tessa" is also from 2018. Can other anybody confirm that Mint Tessa does not work well w/ KXStudio?

The maintainer of KXStudio is said to be on a (short) break in 2019. So I'm weary of installing a very new distro (read: from the year 2019) because I need KXStudio.
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by milo »

I am running Mint 19 on my studio machine, and haven't had any problems with KXstudio repository. Works great as far as I can tell. But I don't use any of the KX software: Carla, Cadence, Catia, [insert random female name that starts with C], etc. so I can't say much about them.
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

milo wrote:I am running Mint 19 on my studio machine, and haven't had any problems with KXstudio repository. Works great as far as I can tell. But I don't use any of the KX software: Carla, Cadence, Catia, [insert random female name that starts with C], etc. so I can't say much about them.
Can we persuade you to install Carla from KXStudio and to try it once? Then we'll know if that sort of stuff works in 'Buntu 19. After that you can remove Carla again of course...
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by milo »

I have a lot of things installed from the KX repositories: ALSA, jackd2, Amsynth, guitarix, qjackctl, hydrogen, lmms, calf-plugins, zynaddsubfx, etc. It's all running fine. Here's Carla:
Screenshot_2019-06-21_17-09-32.png
Screenshot_2019-06-21_17-09-32.png (245.48 KiB) Viewed 1991 times
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lilith
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Re: Best current Ubuntu for KXStudio

Post by lilith »

khz wrote:I have updated several machines from Debian-9 (stretch) to Debian-10 (buster) - as I described it in my "GNU/Linux Debian ... LAW" topic.

/etc/apt/sources.list

Code: Select all

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ buster contrib main non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates non-free main contrib
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ buster-updates non-free main contrib
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports main contrib non-free
KXStudio repository has no problems with dist-uprade and the systems can be updated as usual (automatically).
2.2.4. Unattended-upgrades for stable point releases

Previous versions of unattended-upgrades defaulted to installing only upgrades that came from the security suite. In buster it now also automates upgrading to the latest stable point release. For details, see the package's NEWS.Debian file.
Source: https://www.debian.org/releases/testing ... d-upgrades
The su command in buster is provided by the util-linux source package, instead of the shadow source package, and no longer alters the PATH variable by default. This means that after doing su, your PATH may not contain directories like /sbin, and many system administration commands will fail. There are several workarounds:
  • Use su - instead; this launches a login shell, which forces PATH to be changed, but also changes everything else including the working directory.
  • Use sudo instead. sudo still runs commands with an altered PATH variable.
    • To get a regular root shell with the correct PATH, you may use sudo -s.
    • To get a login shell as root (equivalent to su -), you may use sudo -i.
  • Put ALWAYS_SET_PATH yes in /etc/login.defs to get an approximation of the old behavior.
  • Put the system administration directories (/sbin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/sbin) in your regular account's PATH (see EnvironmentVariables for help with this).
Source: https://wiki.debian.org/NewInBuster

(Release Notes for Debian 10 (buster), 64-bit PC https://www.debian.org/releases/testing ... ex.en.html)
That's great! So you didn't uminstall anything and left also the kxstudio repo in the source list?
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